What is Capitalism but a way of life for many who want to get rich. Communism gets a bad rap for its ability to stifle innovation and effort. However, when you look at Communist China, growing at 7-9% GDP per year, do you really think its citizens have no desire to improve their living standards beyond what is generally proposed?

We all have an inherent nature of wanting to do better. Not only do we want to continue improving, we also want to one-up our peers! After all, what’s the point of making $100,000 dollars a year if everybody else makes the same?

We learned a good amount about how the happiest people on Earth live after my 2.5 week trip to Scandinavia. So, I decided to take a trip to Chongqing, one of the fastest growing cities in China to learn more.

THE CHONGQING FIREBALL

EQ is more important than IQ. I don’t care how smart you are, if you are a weird selfish prick, you won’t get as far as someone who is less smart, but gets along with everybody.

In a previous post, I discussed how I was able to stay at a $2,000/night hotel for a week for free. The travel hack didn’t involve writing a review about the hotel or using a gagillion credit card points. No I didn’t provide personal finance advice to Ryan Seacrest and Lukas Haas either. This travel hack has to do with building good relationships. Let me share some background.

Synopsis: When we’re not talking about ways to make more money to help other people and live better lives, we’re talking about ways to save money on fantastic experiences. This post is part 1/2 of a travel hack rarely discussed. It sets up the stage and provides some insights into more extravagant spending. We’ll also explore whether more luxurious living is really worth the price. Hope you enjoy and stick around for part 2!

When I got to the 4th floor of my hotel there was Ryan Seacrest, hanging outside of my room with his dad. They were waiting for their wives and heading out for dinner. Choosing to be chill rather than starstruck, I just said, “How’s it going guys?” as I passed. They were staying on the same floor of our boutique hotel and responded with a friendly, “not too much.”

Ryan shot to fame as the host of American Idol and is one of the most successful media personalities on the planet with an estimated $300M fortune. How was he able to create so much wealth by being just a reality show personality? By creating his own company, Ryan Seacrest Media and producing hit shows like “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”

One of the weirdest money phenomenons I’ve noticed is people spending way outside their normal limits while on vacation. It’s as if we enter a casino where money has no value because everything is clay chips.

During the first week of our two week European business trip, we stayed at reasonably priced 4-star hotels. We figured, let’s focus on hotels in the best locations since we’d only be visiting each country for 2-3 days.

For dinner, we budgeted 50 € ($60) or less for two. This amount was reasonable as boiled beef and potatoes didn’t cost too much, nor did pizza, pastas, and salads. A buffet breakfast was always included in our hotel stay so we never spent very much on lunch if anything at all.

Like with everything, we spent well within our means because we’re frugal that way. After all, it’s very hard to achieve FIRE without aggressively controlling your spending. When we arrived at our hotel in Paris from Budapest it was about 7:15pm. We were given a tour of all the facilities. This is where our money discipline began to unravel.

Figuring out how much to tip is one of the most awkward things to tackle because tipping is not mandatory. But if you live in America like I do, tipping is part of our culture. Not tipping for service feels weird, so we tend to do it anyway even if it’s not a part of another country’s culture.

Although each country in Europe has a slightly different tipping culture, I’d like to provide a rough guideline of how much to tip any waiter or hotel staff while traveling in any country in Europe. The tipping amounts have been researched through my own travel experiences and speaking with numerous travel industry veterans. And if you’re ever in doubt, you can always tip more!

I’m on a financial journey just like all of you. The only real difference may be that I record my thoughts and feelings about my progress publicly. I do my best to be as authentic as possible. By sharing what we know, we’re able to learn from others. I think we all have blind spots that need illuminating.

There’s one new observation I’ve learned since starting Financial Samurai in 2009 and leaving Corporate America in 2012 that I’d like to share with you. It’s a realization that lends weight to the power of positive thinking.

Travel is amazing. Since childhood, I’ve had the travel bug because growing up, that’s all I did. I was born in Manila, Philippines, stayed briefly in Washington, DC and moved to Lusaka, Zambia for a couple years. In Kobe, Japan I started kindergarten. In Taipei, Taiwan I had four years of elementary school. I then went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for middle school where I learned a lot of bad things. Finally, I returned to the States for high school and college. As the son of US foreign service parents, life was interesting.

As an adult, my frequent travel continued because luckily I found jobs in the international equities department of two large financial organizations. Up to four times a year, I’d travel to Asia to attend conferences or bring clients to see companies. Kissing the ring in New York City HQ was also an annual rite of passage. It was a whole lot of fun!

Traveling to new places on business is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have. Not only do you get to explore new worlds and meet amazing people, all your flights, hotels, and meals are free. Since I’m no longer in Corporate, I needed to some how recreate this perk.

After 24 years, I finally returned to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a place I called home between 1988 – 1991 as a middle school student at The International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL). I’d been wanting to go back for the longest time, but I never made the effort because it takes 20+ hours to get to from San Francisco.

When an ISKL classmate told me he was going to marry a mutual friend, I knew it was now or never! I decided to make it an extended four week trip by first stopping in Seoul for five days, then Kuala Lumpur for the wedding, then Pulau Redang for an island honeymoon getaway with the newlyweds, then Angkor Wat to see the ancient temples, and finally Taipei.

If you’ve never been to Malaysia, you’ve got to go. The food is amazing, the people are friendly, and the attractions are wonderful. This post focuses on the food.

In order to get to my friend’s wedding in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I stopped by Seoul, Korea for five days. In addition to checking out some amazing palaces and eating kalbi every day, one must also take an hour bus ride, 35 miles away to the Demilitarized Zone, aka the DMZ.

The DMZ is ironically one of the most militarized areas of the Korean peninsula. It was established on July 27, 1953 as a 2.5 mile wide buffer between the North and South. The line in the center of the DMZ is called the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). I was curious to see the place for myself since a flare up in country relations always seems to occur at least twice a year.

So why was the DMZ created in the first place? It started with the Japanese when they took over Korea from 1910 until the end of World War II in 1945. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and—by agreement with the United States—occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel. The US subsequently occupied the south and Japan surrendered.

From 1950 – 1953 over three million people died fighting for the sovereignty of Korea. The North, influenced by the Soviets and the Chinese with their communist ideology, felt they had right to rule the land. The South, helped by the Americans and our democratic ideology strongly disagreed.

When asked about career advice, I always recommend people just follow the money. New York City has all the financial firms. San Francisco has all the tech, internet, and venture capital money. While Washington DC and the surrounding suburbs have all of our tax money to spend on massive government contracts!

I’ve lived in all three areas for extended periods of time, and I’ve seen massive fortunes made in multiple ways. If you want to “get lucky,” then you might as well go where there’s opportunity. Because twiddling your thumbs in a dying town, complaining why you can’t get ahead doesn’t make sense when you live in a free country with no state border controls.

The biggest push back I get for my “follow the money” advice is that such places are just so damn expensive. It is absurd that the median rent in San Francisco is now around $4,000 a month. But the only reason why rent is $4,000 a month is because incomes are high enough to afford such levels! If there weren’t, rent would fall.

The market is efficient. Capital is fluid. Everything is rational. Only an idiot with an online business would NOT try and geo-arbitrage his way to a lower cost area of the world. Oh wait, that’s me.

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